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Two contestants, one a returning champion playing "X", the other the challenger playing "O", faced a tic-tac-toe style game board. On the board are nine categories in nine boxes. The contestants in turn picked a category, then the host asked a question under that category. A correct answer won the box by placing his/her symbol in it, an incorrect answer meant the box remained unclaimed. After each turn (originally after each round), categories shuffled to different positions. The object of the game was to place three Xs or Os in a row, either across (horizontally), up and down (vertically), or diagonally. Along the way, correct answers also added money the pot. The outside boxes were worth $500, while the center box was worth $1,000, since the questions there were tougher; in fact they were all two-parters, and the player in control was given extra time to think it over. The first player to get tic-tac-dough won the game, became Tic Tac Dough champion, took all the money in the pot, and went on to play the Tic-Tac-Dough bonus game. If the game ended in a tie (eight boxes for both players with no chance for a win, or the board was completely filled-up), a brand-new game was played with new categories, the pot was reset to zero and the value of all boxes increased.

In this bonus game, the board now consisted of tic-tac-toe symbols a dragon and a dragon slayer. The hidden spaces were shuffled around and stopped by the winning contestant. During the shuffled, the winning contestant decided which symbol s/he thinks will find the Tic-Tac-Dough with. The winning contestant started calling off numbers, and the first time the chosen symbol was found, $500 was put into the pot. Then each subsequent time the chosen symbol was found, the money was doubled. Finding the dragon at any point caused the player to lose the money; that's why he/she always got the option to stop and take the money or continue playing. If a Tic-Tac-Dough with the chosen symbol or the dragon slayer was found, the money was doubled and the winning contestant also won a prize package. Dragon slayer on the first pick won $1000.